My very first was a Sinclair ZX81, had the hardest time just to get it to display properly on my french TV set. No modem, no tape drive, nothing, just plain basic and a lot of fun !! Was not mine, just a loan from a friend who did not bite to the all personal computing thing.
Switched to Oric Atmos 16 for a short time, then got my own personnal Comodore 64, 15'' COLOR display (man the price of that thing !!!) tape drive, and I hooked it up to an external 1200 baud modem... I think I never disconnected from the computer world since that moment ;-)